Help, Advice, Charging Range, Major Problems with the i3

[hayleys900]

Hi,

I got my BMW i3 on the 1st Septemeber 2014. And have had continous problems with the car.

1) The main computer dash kept turning off
2) Problems with the Blue Tooth
3) At Christmas the car was saying it was charged fully to 44 miles in Eco Pro+ Mode (No applicances on at all in the car)
4) Now the car says it will only charge to 77 miles in Eco Pro+ Mode (no applicances on in the car)
5) The car seems to lose charge when it is turned off. Can lose 10 to 20 miles a day. (I turn the car back to exactly the same mode when I turn it back on)

So now BMW have had my car for two and a half weeks while they have been running tests.

Has anybody else had the same/similar problems???

Thanks
Hayley

 

[WoodlandHills]

Where are you? The software can be different in different countries and that can affect things.

 

[i3atl]

Hi,

I got my BMW i3 on the 1st Septemeber 2014. And have had continous problems with the car.

1) The main computer dash kept turning off - can you describe the behavior?
2) Problems with the Blue Tooth - need more info about what was happening?
3) At Christmas the car was saying it was charged fully to 44 miles in Eco Pro+ Mode (No applicances on at all in the car) Is it a REx or BEV? What was the temp outside?
4) Now the car says it will only charge to 77 miles in Eco Pro+ Mode (no applicances on in the car) Same questions as above.
5) The car seems to lose charge when it is turned off. Can lose 10 to 20 miles a day. (I turn the car back to exactly the same mode when I turn it back on) What do you mean by "lose" charge?

Need more info - see above.

 

[jadnashuanh]

The indicated range is based on the last 18-miles of your driving, and the current temperature. As the temperature goes down, without doing a single thing, your indicated range will go down or up as the temp rises. While it would be hard to drive the car to get an indicated 40miles max range (on a full battery), it is possible. Without more info, everything is a guess.

 

[hayleys900]

Hi, I am in the UK.

My car is a BEV.

The 1st issue was a recall, a problem with the software, they updated this and resolved that problem, as Bluetooth now resolved.

The 3rd Issue, Again was apparantly a software issue and so they have supposedly fixed that.

The losing charge. I noticed when I was at work, I would get back into the car at the end of the day and the reading was 10 to 20 miles less than when I turned it off in the morning.

Regarding the charging to 77 miles in Eco Pro+. I know some is based upon your driving style. However BMW lent me another i3 BEV and this was charging to 110mile in EcoPro+. Makes no sense.

Was wondering if anyone else had experienced these sort of problems???

 

[alohart]

Was wondering if anyone else had experienced these sort of problems???

I haven't, but the temperatures in my climate vary only about 15º C from the coldest nights to the hottest days. However, many i3 owners in more temperate climates have reported observations similar to yours.

Losing range during the day in the winter is thought to be caused by the battery pack temperature dropping while the car is parked compared with its temperature after preconditioning and/or the car being stored in a garage whose temperature is warmer than that outside. One of the many factors considered by the range calculator is battery pack temperature, so when the battery pack temperature drops, the predicted range drops.

The car that you borrowed had likely driven quite differently recently than yours, so its range calculator based its calculation on very different conditions compared with your car. It might also have recently had its software updated which deletes driving history resulting in very high range predictions initially.

For many i3 owners, using the battery pack's 18.8 kWh usable capacity, one's typical efficiency in mi/kWh or kWh/100 km, and one's knowledge of the driving ahead can result in a better estimate of future range. This approach will improve after the release of the software update that will allow one to display the percent of remaining capacity. If you expect that you can average 4 mi/kWh based on your experience with your car, driving style, and trip ahead, and have 50% capacity remaining (or 9.4 kWh), you could estimate your maximum range to be 4 x 9.4 = ~38 miles. I think that this could be a better estimate that the current range estimates which can vary widely for reasons that we don't understand.

 

[Boatguy]

I have a BEV in California. I always drive in Comfort mode, probably 30% - 50% of my miles are on the freeway at 70mph (115kmh) and average 4.2mi/kWh (6.7km/kWh). Since the KLE replacement and related s/w update (the GOM definitely became more optimistic), I'm usually looking at 80 miles (130km) of range each morning when I leave the house. The range indicated on the iOS app seems to be calculated by some other algorithm and is usually wildly incorrect; I ignore it.

I also recently updated the tele/audio software and the Bluetooth behavior became a little smoother.

In October I left the car unplugged for 10days and it lost about 3-5% of it's charge, certainly not 10-20 miles. If you're losing that much range over the course of 6-8hrs, something is wrong.

 

[jadnashuanh]

One thought, if you have comfort access, and are constantly moving around the car past the sensors, that causes various things to 'wake up' each time that happens. They go to sleep after awhile, but it's not instantaneous. I doubt that could cause a huge drop in battery level, but it won't help.

 

[BrianStanier]

Very high estimated mileages after a software update are normal. So disregard the loaner reading. In any case 110 miles in the UK at current temperatures is almost impossible in reality.

As others have said it's most likely temperature change. What matters is what range you actually get from fully charged to empty, not what the car guesses.

 

[hayleys900]

Thanks everyone.

I know the car they lent me had all the information re set. However I did have it for over a week and only had to charge it twice. In my car I am having to charge it every night to do a 25 mile round trip. For the week I had the car I drove this exactly the same as my own car and the inital charging range was much higher than mine.

When I first spoke to BMW about the problems I was having, they explained that the range could have been lowered because of my driving style. I changed my driving style around and for 3 weeks I drove my car in Eco Pro+ mode with no applicances on in the car, didn't accelerate hard and not once gone over 56mph. I found that my car still only charged fully to 77miles in ECo Pro+ mode (50 in comfort mode with no applicances on). I really don't think this is right???

Then to top it off, as previously mentioned they car is losing charge when off. In the UK the temperature is not that extreme that the car should be losing 10 to 20 miles when it is sat for 8 hrs.

Thanks

 

[BrianStanier]

That's not very different from my figures. I see about 65 miles indicated range in Eco pro at this time of year. 85 in the summer. Much the same or slightly better than the Leaf we had before.

As far as driving style is concerned a steady speed can be better than constant acceleration and deceleration. I see better (less) consumption at a steady 65 on the motorway than I do at much slower speeds on country roads with constant changing speed. Acceleration does not seem to have much impact, unlike with an ICE car - it doesn't really matter whether you accelerate hard or gently, it's how many time you have to do it.

Preconditioning helps range (and comfort).

 

[juniorbeep]

I don't really understand people's obsession with the GOM. Saying that you lose range or gain range just because the GOM says so that morning is immaterial. Best way as a previous poster suggests. Look at your average over the time you have had the car... say 4mile/kwh and do the sums. Then you know values of half charge will take you x distance and quarter charge will take you y distance.... more or less.

If you look at the app you can see the community averages 3.5 mile/kw/h. I average 4.3 and the best is 5.1. So judging that you can work out that the average people get from the car is 65 miles, I average 79 and the best managed 94... so an average of those is spookily 79 miles. in and around those figures is what you should get give or take a little for conditions and driving style.

If you are leaving the car for a day and the battery level drops that is different to the GOM telling you you have lost range...

 

[BrianStanier]

I agree with above. My average during the summer was 4.6, I suspect my battery is a little over the 18.8 and I easily achieved 85+ miles before needing Rex.
Now, with the cold and wet weather it's down to about 3.7 (4.3 overall) and a range of 65+.

 

[MikeS]

Your ranges are about the same as I see after a full charge at the moment. I definitely seems to be the weather. That said, if I just do a single main journey instead of lots of short ones then I tend to se high 70s in eco pro. My range prediction in the car seems very accurate although it is disconcerting to stop the car with say 55 miles and get back in 5 mins later to see a prediction of 51 miles!

 

[WoodlandHills]

My garage gets down to the low 50sF and before the KLE replacement I typically saw ranges in the low 60s. Since the new KLE and software update I am seeing ranges in the low 50s, this is as per the GoM..... It is a moot point since we never get near an SOC below 50% and we have a REx anyway, but there it is: a 10 mile drop in indicated range in a week.

 

[BrianStanier]

It is likely that if you never go below 50% SOC the car isn't able to make a good guess at the real SOC. Try full cycling a couple times.